she
by HiME ViSUAL
Summary: Soran Ibrahim was a name she decided she wasn't worthy of for all the sins she commited as a jihad for KPSA. She lived as Kamilah Majirif in shame until she became Setsuna F. Seiei, Gundam Meister of Celestial Being's Mobile Suits, to atone for her sins.


**Prologue – Distort Into Me**

At dusk's final light, the ever blazing sun slowly began its ritual descent beyond the distant horizon, illuminating the canvas sky with crimson and violet shadows. The air teemed with the nauseating scent of coppery blood beneath the heady breath of gunpowder, death, and decay. Dying screams echoed throughout the dusty and barren ruins as gunfire and explosions following their wake.

Soran Ibrahim was among the few left who desperately clung to life, hidden beneath a dark alcove armed with a flimsy rifle. Empty shell casings surrounded her filthy body, tinkling as they rolled across the cracked pathways with every tremble of the earth. Gunfire sounded above her head, missiles whistling until they made contact with the ground, splitting the very foundation of what was once known as a simple farming village.

A scream pierced the heavens to her right, cutting off abruptly as shots were immediately fired afterwards. Soran's fingers danced across her last grenade, teeth biting into the flimsy pin. She jerked her head towards her left and threw it at an incoming MSER-04 Anf Mobile Suit before fleeing from her temporary refuge for better cover.

Soran leapt over fallen debris, bypassing broken furniture of all kinds as she ran for her life. Eyes never stayed on the motionless corpses of her fallen comrades for more than an instant, leaving her without adequate time to distinguish the cadavers and place names to the disfigured remains. Soran no longer wanted to consider the likely number of comrades the enemy has slain, of the neighbours she grew up with or the friends she had made these past several months.

She slid into a niche and pressed her back against the wall, wiping the sweat from her brow as she quickly settled her.

The fact that their side had more able bodied soldiers to fight with in this unnecessary war didn't matter, in the end. Their enemy had better guns to strike them down with, stronger soldiers who've already tasted the horrors of war, and powerful mobile suits that rained down gunfire on all targets visible within their crosshairs. All they had were an amassed group of children who were trained as _jihad_ for the _harabum muqaddasah_, armed with old and outdated firearms dating back to who knows when.

Winning the battle seemed like a distant dream now, far beyond what she alone or her comrades could even hope to attain. Fighting a war with God at their side proved to be of no help at all, merely machinations crafted by a charlatan prophet whose only gift was spreading lies through his tainted lips. The only matter of importance was getting out alive and taking as many lives as she could of enemy combatants for all the grief they've caused her.

"God does not exist." Soran decided with a voice raucous from calling out to her fallen comrades as they were struck down, one by one.

As resolute as they were to fight for their values, they were all terrified about death. Some of the children held strong, taking up arms and conquered their fears as bravely as they could. A scant few remained on the battlefield, desperate for their God to save them from this eternal nightmare. Others allowed themselves to be driven mad with terror and tried to run as far as their legs could carry them.

Their watchers were quick to gun them down and turned to address the remaining group. Deserting was a sin, a traitorous act that spat on the very name of God himself. Those who abandoned their beliefs were as good as dead, traitors to their people and faith.

They were all manipulated from the very beginning by a devious monster who longed for the battlefield just as much as he longed for fine women and even finer spirits. Children were the easiest to mould, effortless to shape into willing pawns to act as shields for their protection and thorns for their adversaries. Ali-Al Saachez was a devil given form, one who preached about divinity and their ultimate duty to their holy God.

Soran, too, had believed in Saachez, once upon a time. Being the only girl within the militia Saachez paid her special attention, personally crafting her into the monster that she was today. She did everything she was told to do, following his orders without question like a hapless mutt and committing sin after sin just to please him.

It wasn't until the day she had taken the lives of two people she treasured the most had Soran begin to reconsider the entirety of all she had been taught.

Looking back, Soran knew how much of a fool she was to believe in that monster. She made no excuses for the crimes she had committed or for the sins she performed while under his spell. Soran accepted the fact that she had done everything with her own two hands and that the blame was solely her own. It didn't, however, curb her innate desire to rip out Saachez's shrivelled heart not just for her own sake but for the others Saachez twisted beyond repair.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Soran quickly brushed away the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. Her dry, chapped lips quivered as she willed herself to repress the heart-retching emotion that dare make her scream with anguish. Losing focus in the middle of a battlefield was the last thing she wanted to do.

An explosion to her left shook the earth beneath her, fire-lit debris soaring overhead. Soran instantly began sprinting towards her right, aiming her AK-47 towards a dusty MSER. She pulled the trigger and fired a hail of bullets at the hulk of metal before she was thrown forward, the aftermath of an explosive collision between a stray missile and a section of rubble. Wasting no time, Soran retrieved her dropped assault rifle before leaping for cover behind a wall that was once a part of a small house.

Broken dishes and shattered porcelain cups were scatted across the cracked floor of a room she vaguely recognized. Across the room a battered wooden table laid broken from its place on the floor, legs splintered and left to rot over a heap of rubble and dirt. A blood trail was smeared across the stone floor, leading towards a broken doll dressed in a lavender grime-tainted gown.

"Tali . . ." she whispered in disbelief.

Soran whimpered as memories assaulted her thoughts. The screams of her mother and father echoed in her psyche, pleas for mercy silenced as gunfire echoed throughout the kitchen room. The very image of her parents' eyes staring at her with betrayal cut deeply in her heart; the life which faded from their dying eyes forever engraved itself deep within her mind.

"Bav . . . dayê . . ." Soran murmured underneath her breath, tightly shutting her eyes in a futile attempt to ward away the terrible memories that plagued her mind, "please forgive me."

A mechanical hiss cut through the air as missiles were released from their storage compartment. They launched themselves into the air, soaring through the burning skies above as smoke left a greying trail from the tail until they made contact with a nearby MSER.

Sensing oncoming danger, Soran dove towards the ground and guarded the back of her neck with her hands as a hail of bullets tore through the wall behind her. Cursing the heavens above Soran grabbed her rifle and ran off in search of safer cover, ignoring the Saachez's repeating broadcasts that sounded throughout the entire battlefield. She dodged a second round of shots, then aimed her own weapon and fired at her assailant.

Several yards ahead, a MSER rotated its cockpit, crosshairs aligned and targeted on her person. There was no time to comprehend that Death stood a hairsbreadth away, ready to sentence her to perdition for all of the crimes she committed. The only thought which rang in her mind was if she could kill the mobile suit pilot faster than he could kill her.

Before she could even begin to pull the trigger of her gun a torrent of light descended from the heavens above, instantly destroying the MSER that stood before her.

All around her mobile suit fell to the shower of light with sparks flying as host and suit alike died from the surprise attack. The earth shook as each suit crashed into the ground as all signs of the battle slowly began to draw to an end.

Cautiously, Soran stepped out from behind her alcove and stared towards the crimson sky with awe. Floating high above in the heavens was a mobile suit of unknown origin, beautifully sleek and strategically designed to function at its highest possible peak. Particles of light expelled from a cone-shaped device upon its back, bathing the body in a light Soran was hard pressed to describe as ethereal.

She watched as the strange mobile suit slowly turned around midair, its steely gaze fixed on her overwhelmed form, seemingly assessing her entire worth. Falu red eyes trailed upwards towards its crown, scanning the English letters engraved upon its grey brow. "Gundam," she read aloud, her limited knowledge of the western language able to decipher at least that much.

Soran's eyes trailed across the beautiful radiant light once again, vaguely comparing each peak to the wings of an angel. Her previous disposition towards anything consecrated slowly began to crumble away the longer she stared at the mobile suit that held the fate of her existence in the palm of its steel hands.


End file.
